Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) won the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll Saturday with 25 percent of the vote. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) came in second at 23 percent.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) finished third with 8 percent of the vote. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie came in fourth, receiving 7 percent. Christie was the only one of the four who wasn’t invited to the conference.

There were 2,930 registrants participating in the straw poll this year.

The annual straw poll was held at the end of the conference, which featured dozens of prominent conservative speakers during three days of sessions.

Mitt Romney won the CPAC poll last year. Former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), a Libertarian, won in 2010 and 2011.

Rand Paul recently gained conservative acclaim for his filibuster against use of drones on U.S. soil. He feels other nations should provide for their own defense and is open to a containment strategy toward Iran.

New tax adds to rising health insurance costs

Major health insurers expect the cost of insurance coverage to increase dramatically for millions of Americans when key provisions of the Affordable Care Act take effect in January, 2014.

Insurers claim they have done all the math and shared the results with the regulators as well as with key individuals in Washington.

The biggest increases will hit some of the people who, not being covered on employer plans, purchase their own individual policies directly from insurers.

One of several factors will be a new tax on insurance premiums that could raise prices as much as 2.3 per cent in 2014, and more in subsequent years.

The new tax on premiums will affect (1) individual insurance policies, (2) some employer-sponsored coverage, and (3) Medicare Advantage policies which supplement the basic Medicare plans for about 25 percent of retirees.

‘No religious affiliation’ climbs to high of 20 percent

The number of Americans claiming’no religious affiliation’ is the highest ever, increasing to 20 percent today from only 8 percent in 1990.

This category, however, does not necessarily reflect how spiritual a person considers himself to be, nor a dramatic increase in the number of nonbelievers.

Instead, it indicates a questioning of organized religion and its position on social and political issues, according to analysts of the General Social Survey.

“Increasingly, people identify and link organized religion with anti-gay attitudes, sexual conservatism, a whole range of those kinds of social cultural values,” said University of California researcher Claude Fischer.

Thus, one third of U.S. adults under the age of 30 don’t identify with a religion.

The report stated that many unaffiliated Americans . . . “think that religious organizations are too concerned with money and power, too focused on rules and too involved in politics.”

“This is a product of the involvement of the religious right in American politics,” said Fisher.

Unfortunately, it seems that nonreligious concepts of politics and ideology increasingly overshadow the traditional religious messages of peace, love and compassion for those in need “” causing some Americans to reject the church instead of the ideologues.

New Obamacare fee of $63 per employee

Beginning next year, most employers will be charged a new fee of $63 a year for each worker, a little-noticed requirement of Obamacare.

This fee goes to create a $25 billion fund for insurance companies “” to offset their cost of covering patients with high medical bills. Pity the poor insurance companies.

Large employers such as Boeing Co. contend that the requirement is unfair because it subsidizes individually purchased plans that won’t cover their workers.

The annual fee goes into effect next year and applies to medical plans covering millions of Americans. It applies to employers who self-insure as well as private plans sold by insurers.

Observing the 10th’anniversary’ of the Iraq War

The U.S. invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003.

This war continued for 106 months, almost nine years.

1,111,610 Americans served there during those years.

4,488 died there, including 110 women.

32,221 were wounded, often with multiple amputations.

235 took their own lives while deployed.

115,376 Iraq civilians were killed between 2003 and 2011.

2.7 million Iraqi civilians had been displaced by 2010.

2/3 of U.S. troops had received small-arms fire by 2006.

60 percent reported a member of their unit becoming a casualty.

$60 billion spent by U.S. rebuilding war-torn Iraq.

$806 billion spent on actual war operations.

$400 billion also added to Pentagon budget.

Eventual cost of veterans’ treatment, untold billions.

Result: No weapons of mass destruction were found.

Result: Saddam and his weak army were eliminated.

Result: al-Qaida now present and active in Iraq.

Result: Iraq now less secular, installed Sharia law.

Result: Iraq has shifted from anti-Iran to pro-Iran.

Howard Hurlbut is an emeritus professor of the University of Redlands and a resident of Redlands.